p. 3 | INVISIBLE PATCHING by F. A. Noble

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 6, 1881

"INVISIBLE PATCHING."

By F. A. Noble

BY REV. F. A. NOBLE, D. D.

ALMOST every day I have occasion to go past the shop of a cobbler in whose window there hangs a neatly printed card bearing the inscription: "Invisible Patching."

It is a taking device. To most of us, walk as daintily as we will, there come times when we must stop and discuss the very homely question of clouting the shoe or throwing it aside. It seems too good for the ash-heap; not quite good enough to give away; and by no means decent to wear as it is. But we are used to it, and it is comfortable—proverbially comfortable. If only there could be some trick by which the break or the hole might be repaired, and at the same time not show any of the mender's stitches, how nice it would be! Pride and economy and conservatism strike hands and rejoice in the prospect.

What my own particular experience with these patchers who patch after the invisible fashion has been it is not necessary to relate. It is enough to say that as often as I see the above-mentioned sign I think of the effect a little exposure to the rain, or a vigorous tramp in the forests and by the brooks will be sure to have on our Crispin's fine job; and I say immediately: "No more of this for me! If we must have patches, let them be patches, laid on in the good old honest style of the art."

Unfortunately, this invisible patching business is not confined to the cobblers. A great many people are trying to do the same thing, or something analogous to it, in higher spheres. The fancy is abroad that mishaps and lapses of one sort and another and immoral excesses can be easily concealed by a little shrewd maneuvering; and that character, cracked or worn through by irregularities of life, can be mended and made to appear as good as new by a little deftness of external manipulation.

Families once rich, but now depleted in fortune, or having some ghastly skeleton in the closet, instead of bravely facing the facts, and making the best of them, not unfrequently resort to this and that and the other cunning expedient to maintain a good outward showing. The airs of those with whom everything is all right are loftily assumed. Through speech, in dress, in going and coming, in hospitalities, in plans announced, a systematic effort is made to keep up appearances. That, indeed, is the one end to which all skill and energy are directed: the keeping up of appearances. There is nothing behind but defeat and sorrow. There is nothing within but hollowness. Life is a series of subterfuges. From first to last, if it is possible to avoid it, there is no admission of the gaunt figures of Fear and Want and Shame standing back in the shadows and tormenting the soul. If only the patch can be put on so that it will not look like a patch, that is all! Thanks to the laws of God, which are in array against all shams, it cannot be.

Here is one in whose habits of sobriety there begin to be indications of ugly rents. He is coming under the power of strong drink. He is conscious of it too; but he loves liquor, and he lacks the moral force to dash the cup from his lips, and turn his back resolutely on intoxicating beverages. Still he has sufficient pride of character, and sufficient regard for his own welfare and standing in the community, to wish it may not be generally known that he drinks. So he tries the trick of powerful spices and burnt coffee, and nobody, save the apothecaries and the liquor-venders, knows the truth, to disguise his breath, and make it appear that he is not drinking at all. How vain the attempt at concealment and deception! There is no jugglery a man can practice on himself or the world whereby he can drink and not have it known that he drinks.

Close at hand is another whose integrity is worn through. The markets and exchanges of all men, have brought their temptations, and he has yielded, and his honesty is gone. He knows it. He knows also the value of a reputation for uprightness. If he is to make headway, he must be thought at least to be straightforward. But instead of confessing his wrong-doing, and putting it all away from him, and starting out anew, he begins to form what seems to him adroit schemes, and to act parts, and to tell lies, in order to cover up his defects, and get on. Of course he fails. So long as the sunshine lasts, and there is no hard strain, the plan may work. So soon, however, as there comes any real test of moral strength, all these patchwork duplicity, and all these smart contrivances at concealment, will be sure to leap into exposure. The simple fact is, moral qualities cannot be successfully hidden or assumed. In the long run a man will pass for just what he is; for just what he is and nothing other. Disguises do not disguise. They do not satisfy. The words of Hamlet to the Queen sooner or later find their way to the lips of us all: "Nay, madam, I know not seems."

When we turn about and look at ourselves on the God-ward side, and in our God-ward relations, it will be seen that this is a truth which reaches down and out a great way. Not a few appear to think that the mischiefs wrought by sin can be mended, and mended so that nobody will be able to detect the line where the new is joined on to the old, by a few simple artifices learned in the schools. Back in the old days there were prophets who thought they could make the spiritual natures of men just as good as new without putting them to the trouble of repenting of their iniquities and believing in God, and trying their best to do his will. In our modern days I think I know of some meeting-houses across whose portals the words of our cobbler's card might be fitly written. The promises made are so captivating, and the whole thing is to be done on such easy terms! A tolerable amount of knowledge; the graces of intellectual and social culture; good nature, and a plenty of charity for everybody—except, forsooth, the man who believes something and has some downright convictions—these skillfully applied will mend the man up, and make him look, at any rate, just as good as new.

It is needless to say all this finds no shelter in the New Testament. The method of the new birth and re-creation. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." To be as good as new one must be new. To be saved, souls must accept Christ, and come under the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring the reason and the will and the conscience forward into conformity to God. In the matter of character let us have no "patching" of any kind.—Christian Union.